272 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [px. ii. 



early times this power of cooperation can "hardly he gained 

 save through the uniformity of discipline prescribed by 

 tyrannical custom, it is also true that a considerable amount 

 of individual variability is, even in early times, a source of 

 military strength to the community. For in all stages of 

 progress the law holds good that, in order to ensure a per- 

 manent supply of first-rate individual excellence, whether in 

 intellect or in character, there must be perpetual variation, — 

 the members of the community must not all conform to 

 precisely the same standard of belief or action. It is not 

 simply that out of the conflict of opinions there comes an 

 increase of mental power, but it is that where absolute 

 uniformity of opinion is enforced, the very individuals most 

 capable of serving the community by reason of superior 

 mental power are neglected, thwarted, or killed off. The 

 truth is not yet wholly trite that the most valuable men of 

 every age are its heretics. For this truth is obscured by the 

 kindred truth that the heresy of one age is the orthodoxy 

 of the next, — so that complacent orthodoxy, ignoring the 

 historical point of view, is wont to claim as its allies to-day 

 the very men whom it burnt or crucified in days gone by. 

 Obviously it is in the nature of things that this should 

 be so. If old-established ideas were never to be unsettled, 

 new truths would cease to find recognition, and progress 

 would be at an end. But in any age the discoverers and 

 promulgators of new truths are to be found only among 

 those who possess the superior mental flexibility requisite 

 for shaking themselves loose from the network of old- 

 established ideas. And wherever there is such mental 

 flexibility, there is sure to be heresy. Above all is this true 

 in early communities, for in these later times we have 

 become so far accustomed to variations in belief and practice, 

 and have so far substituted individual for corporate responsi- 

 bility, that there is a great deal of variation which we do 

 not count as heresy, but which formerly would have been 



